I confess to being a little out of touch with the price of pens lately. I tend to type everything. Have they really gone up so much?

The Montegrappa pens, sold by Hamptons Finer Things, often have a $4.49 shipping fee.

What I particularly like about the Montegrappa is how it has fueled such a high number of customer reviews. Clearly, this is a very popular pen. Reviewer C. Yu says: "Nice pen, but I keep losing it. This is the third one I've had to buy. They should offer it in a box of 20. Be sure to look around for good deals on the refills, BTW. They really get you on the refills."

Excellent advice, no doubt.

To be honest, I don't actually know if the Montegrappa is the most expensive. I'm making an assumption that I hope is correct, and that there isn't a more expensive pen on Amazon, or anywhere else.

If anyone has bought one of these pens, and presumably they have, it's tempting to think about how many children that amount of money might have fed, or how many lives it might have helped save. But what would be the point in doing that?

I'm only picking on the pen because I happened to find it. There are countless other ways where money is spent outrageously. I commit some of them myself. Not 69k's worth mind you. I'm thinking more about that three dollar bottle of Kombucha I bought the other day that I could have easily gone without. Or the Venti Coffee when a Tall would have done just as well.